Random Track of the Day
Monday, August 1 2011
As promised some time ago, here is where I will be choosing one single track at random, via the shuffle feature on my media player, and reviewing it. It may be from an album, it may be a single, a hit, a one-hit-wonder. It may be something totally unknown, a live track or a bonus track, or something I may not even have heard myself. I'll be telling you why I like, or don't like it, and possibly a little about the album it comes from, assuming that's the case. It's Dame Chance in control again, so here we go...
Safeguard to Paradise --- Epica --- from The Divine Conspiracy on Nuclear Blast
As it happens, this is one I haven't heard. I've listened to Epica's “Consign to oblivion”, and very much enjoyed it, but this album is new to me. One of the many hundreds, perhaps even thousands waiting on my hard disk to be heard. So, let's give it a whirl, eh?
Starting off with a nice piano and keyboard melody, it sounds like it may be one of the slower songs on the album. The divine voice of Simone Simons comes through then, behind lovely strings and piano, no percussion as yet. The song is, apparently, concerned with the methods used to convince young Islamic men and women to become suicide bombers, so controversial at the very least. Beautiful strings counterpoint the dark subject matter as Simone sings
”It's the truth between his cunning lies/That hands him his suspicious alibis/ Persuading with your forms will never be/ The way to our destiny.”
With a subject like this, first of all bravo to Epica for tackling it, and also for not necessarily slanting it either way, but a lot of bands would have gone the hard-rockin', shouting way to make such a point. Epica, known for their dramatic heavy progressive metal, decide to take an entirely different tack, and create a gentle, haunting ballad that somehow hits home harder with its light piano runs and gentle strings than a battery of shredding guitars and pounding drums would, and it's quite a miniature masterpiece they've come up with here.
The power is also in the lyric, as in the closing lines:
”Many virgins wait for him to come/ Persuading with your force will never be/ The way to our destiny.” Full marks to Coen Janssen too, on his keyboard and synth work, which sounds like a string section and is extremely effective.
So, not bad for a first selection, and one I didn't know beforehand. Let's see what tomorrow brings then, shall we?